Happy 2nd Birthday our sweet Brayden!!!

I can't even imagine what my life was like before having this sweet love in my life!  Brayden is hilarious, sweet, loving, affectionate, smart, inquisitive, and energetic!  Here is what our Brayden is up to at two years old:

*His vocabulary increases with each day, he will repeat everything we say and is such a little sponge soaking up new words and ideas.  He has just recently started using 2-3 and sometimes 4 words together.  

*Brayden LOVES  to read books. He will bring us book after book upon book to read each and every day.  He likes to point out things and characters that he knows.  He is in to books about trucks and animals and also really likes some particular characters like:  Curious George, Clifford, Elmo, and The Bernstein Bears.  He has started really enjoying going to the library and picking out books.
*Brayden also really enjoys looking at pictures and videos.  He likes to see himself and also other people that he knows.  He associates our phones, Ipads, and computers with pictures so everytime he sees them he says "pictures" and wants to sit with us and look and look!

*He is still really into tractors, trucks, trains, airplanes, pretty much anything that moves and makes noise!

*Brayden has gotten really good at building blocks and legos.  We have been very impressed with his attention span, his focus, and his ability to stack more than we would have expected.  He has also gotten much better at doing puzzles and will actually sit still and finish putting a puzzle together in one sitting.

*This kid absolutely adores playing with other kids.  He gets so excited when he gets the chance to play with kids that he knows and especially enjoys playing with kids that are older than him.  We go to a music class once a week at the school he will attend next year and he loves it!  He tries to participate in many of the activities and likes to run around like a maniac along with the other kids!  

*Brayden still loves playing outside and now that it is getting warmer he prefers to play in the backyard naked and get in and out of his little pool

*Buddy is a HAM!  He loves attention (trust me he gets plenty of that) and he loves to show off all of his tricks and everything that he knows!

I was trying to get a pic of S girl and B just wanted to be included!  Silly!!!

*Brayden still sucks his thumb, mainly just when he is tired or not feeling good

I love that he still does this, he just lays on our shoulder and sucks his thumb and is so sweet!  He also lays on our chest and does this right before we put him down for the night, we so cherish this time because we know it won't last forever!

*He is still using the potty just before bath and every once in a while randomly he will ask to use the potty on his own...We have not gotten serious about toilet training yet and honestly I am not looking forward to it!

*Brayden is still a great sleeper at night sleeping from about 7:30 pm till about 8:00 am, his naps have shortened a little but he usually gets about a 2 1/2 hour nap after lunch each day

*He also continues to be a great eater as well and will eat just about anything you give him.  He is also unfortunately a really messy eater but is doing great eating with a fork and a spoon.  He drinks out of sippy cups but if he had his way he would drink out of normal cups instead.  He loves drinking from a cup but usually ends up spilling many of the contents down his shirt or all over the floor.

*Brayden is a lover!!! He will give just about anybody hugs and kisses or a high five.  He gives Brian, Mia, and I frequent kisses and often pats me, Sterling, and Mia and tells us "good girl" :)

*He is starting to want more to do with Sterling, occasionaly wants to hold her, and hold her hand.  It is very sweet but he still needs to be watched like a hawk because he is still not very good about being gentle!

1. 

*Every morning when I get Brayden up I ask him if he slept good, he always says yes.  Then I ask him if he had good dreams and he always says yes, and I ask him what he drempt about.  He always starts with mama, dada, then usually gaga and papa and then he will list a couple of random family members or friends I guess he had been thinking about.  The other day he added truck at the end and I asked him what kind of truck and he said "monster truck".  

*We are in a pretty set routine of eating dinner as a family at the same time every night.  It is so funny when we forget Brayden will say "pray" and put his hands together to pray!  He always helps us end the prayer with "AMEN!
*When we catch Brayden doing something he shouldn't be doing or we want to try to get him to do something he does not want to do he says "bye, bye" and waves to us trying to get us to go away, it is hilarious!

Caught in the act!  This picture was taken just after I took the highlighter that he was using to color the side of the bed, "BYE BYE!!!"

*Monkey see, monkey do...Buddy wants to be just like his daddy!  Brian really has to watch what he does, and especially what he says in front of Brayden!

*And there is never a dull moment around here...Brian and I took the kids down to Port Aransas last weekend driving down after Brian was finished with work so we did not get there till about thirty minutes past Brayden's normal bedtime.  We gave him a quick bath, set up the pack-n-play (which he has ALWAYS slept in when we go out of town, no problem) and put him down to go to sleep (now we are about an hour past his bedtime and he is tired!) I walk into the kitchen and tell Brian that I think we have a problem because Brayden had hiked his leg up on the side of the pack-n-play before I left the room.  Well before I had the chance to finish the sentence Brayden strolled on into the kitchen saying "hewo, hewo" (his version of hello) with a great big smile on his face.  We tried 2-3 more times to get him to go down in the pack-n-play before we realized it was not going to happen!  Brian and I just sat there looking at each other thinking what in the world are we going to do?!  Here we were in a semi unfamiliar place and Brayden had NEVER slept anywhere besides his crib or his pack-n-play.  Well finally around 10:30 after trying several different sleeping arrangements and strategies that did not work, we all settled into our bed together to try and get some sleep.  Let me just paint you a quick picture, a queen sized bed with me, Brian, Mia, and Brayden with Sterling sleeping in the pack-n-play beside the bed.  We had never let Brayden sleep with us and we were a little nervous about how it would go! Brian and I were both silently trying to hold back the laughter as we waited for Brayden to fall asleep.  He just kept on talking.... It sounded a little like this... mama, mama, mama, mama, dada,dada,dada,dada, Mia,Mia, covers, covers, covers, good girl (pats me) good girl, good girl, brush (rubs my hair) brush, brush, and you get the idea!  This went on for a good 10 minutes the first night and we just had to ignore him so that he would be quiet and go to sleep!   We all ended up sleeping fine and we let him stay with us all weekend.  It actually ended up being alot of fun because he is so sweet and cuddly and we actually missed him when we got home and got in bed without him!  He mainly shared Brian's side of the bed and Brian said that he moved around all night long!  When we got home we were worried he would try climbing out of the crib and he did try once but Brian stopped him right away.  He has not tried again but still we know that we need to go ahead and transition him to his big bed ASAP.  He has had Croup the past couple of days (including today his birthday of all days!) so we have kept him in his crib but it is coming SOON and I am so nervous!!!  

Daddy bought him his first real golf club this month, he really likes it and is surprisingly pretty good at hitting the ball

He has several stuffed monkeys and he calls them all George, this particular one seems to be his favorite

Aunt Christi gave him this tricycle and it is still a work in progress!

My happy 2 year old :)

Happiest 2nd Birthday to our Sweet Brayden!  We love you to pieces and thank God for you each and every day!!!

My Sterling Girl is 1 month old

Yes, our sweet girl is already 1 month old and already changing!  While still little, she no longer looks like an itty bitty newborn.  She is beginning to fill out, starting with her chin!  At her two week appointment the doctor said that Sterling looked great and she weighed in at 8 pounds even.  That is up from 7.8 at birth and 7 pounds leaving the hospital. Here is what Sterling has been up to her very first month of life :)

*At two weeks Sterling was on a pretty good schedule of eating every 2 1/2-3 hours throughout the day and night
*Now at 1 month she is on a very predictable schedule of 2 1/2 hours during the day and 3-5 hour stretches at night.  Right now she is consistently eating 8 times a day.
*We are also already on a pretty good wake/eat/play schedule already, I guess it is just easier the second time around!  Sterling gets held a lot less than Brayden did at this age because we now know about how long she can go being awake before she needs to get put down for a nap.  She is usually only awake for an hour to an hour and a half stretch before she is ready for another snooze.  Sometimes when we put her down she doesn't cry at all and goes right to sleep.  Most times though, we put her in her crib awake and she will cry for 5-10 minutes before she falls asleep.
*Speaking of crying, when this girl cries you could probably hear it for miles!  Baby girl has some lungs on her and when she is hungry boy she will let you know!!!
*Sterling is still in the pack-n-play at our bedside and has been there from the first night home from the  hospital.  This arrangement is working well for us now with the exception of how loud this little girls grunts and noises are!  It has taken me this whole month but I am starting to get used to all of her noise and am not waking up at every little sound!  My dear husband luckily has no idea what is going on because he is sleeping soundly next to me with the help of his earplugs!!!
*Sterling has been a good little nurser right from the beginning and lucky for me has been pretty quick as well!  Most nursing sessions including a diaper change usually last just under thirty minutes.
*The first couple of weeks Sterling very rarely cried unless she was hungry, she also cried when getting her diaper or clothes changed and when she was given a bath.  I swore I would never use a pacifier again but just after the two week mark I gave in because the crying became a little more frequent and it felt like I was feeding her too often!  We only use it during the day though and have yet to have to give it to her at night.  She no longer cries when getting changed and we are now in a routine of a nightly bath before her last feeding of the day and she seems to actually like it.

How are we adjusting around here with a two year old and a newborn?!  I am not going to lie, the first couple of weeks were pretty hard and exhausting!  No one told me it would be quite this hard trying to juggle both of their schedules and keep everyone fed and happy!  We definitely could not have done it without the meals that our very sweet friends brought over those first couple of weeks!  It has gotten easier just within the past week or two and I am starting to feel a little more rested as well!  Hopefully it will just continue to get easier!
How has our buddy adjusted to having a baby sister around?  Well for the first couple of weeks I really do think he had a little bit of trouble... He was sucking his thumb a lot more, was very clingy, and was crying a lot and we were not able to figure out why.  However, that did not last long and Brayden is back to being his happy and silly self.  During week 1 he did throw a couple of balls at Sterling while she was in her pack-n-play.  I don't think it was done maliciously though and he has not done it since.  Most days he really does not show Sterling any interest, but some days like yesterday for example he wanted to hold her hand a lot and wanted so badly to "hold her" which we let him do with some help and lots of supervision.  I have tried to set up Sterling's schedule so that I am not nursing her all day when Brayden is awake so right now I am only nursing her 2 and sometimes 3 times while he is awake.  Usually while I am nursing Brayden will come sit with us in my chair and just bring me book after book to read to him.  I am so lucky that he loves books and this is such a sweet time that I will cherish snuggling up to both of my babies!  With all of the reading going on however, I am burnt out on our book collection and we are definitely going to the library this week to get a new stash!!!

I have already noticed that Sterling is being treated like the "second child" that she is!  For example, I swear we had at least a picture a day of Brayden for his first month!  Sterling girl, not so much but here are some pictures of her first month of life :)

Daddy hangin with all three of his babies

We have been swaddling baby girl from the first day we got home

Sterling has had many visitors this month, but she had a couple of very special ones:

Great Mamer and PaPa Barron with their first Great Grandaughter 

Great Granny Rehkopf

Girlfriend really loves spending time outside, I am not sure how much she can actually see but she lays there so content just looking around.  

My little sleeping beauty

I want to thank everyone for your kind words, phone calls, and visits this past month! Thanks so much for thinking of us :)  We have an incredibly busy month coming up so hopefully I'll be able to stay current with my posts!

Sterling's Newborn Pictures

Our friend and awesome photographer Kim with Modern BeBe came over when Ms Sterling was 10 days old for her newborn photo shoot.  She got some beautiful shots of S and some pretty cute ones of her big brother too :) Enjoy!

Knock, Knock, who's there?!

Thanks to my friend Mari for this adorable idea!!!

Brayden was happy to help Ms. Kim do some test shots in Sterling's room!

nursery

Kim had to really work to get Sterling in this position and I am so glad she did, look how sweet!!!

LOVE!

We managed to get in a few family shots but as you can imagine our two year old was not the most cooperative!!!

Sweet kisses for his new baby sister

Pup wanted in on the action!

And my favorite pick from the day, just love these sweet eyelashes and that adorable little pouty lip!!!

Blessed and a little sleep deprived :)